A patent is not a right to practice or use the invention. Rather, a patent provides the right to exclude other from making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the patented invention for the term of the patent, which is usually 20 years from the filing date subject to the payment of maintenance fees.
A patent is, in effect, a limited property right that the government offers to inventors in exchange for their agreement shares the details of their inventions with the public. Like any other foppery right, it may be sold, licensed, mortgaged, assigned or transferred, given away, or simply abandoned.
The rights conveyed by a patent vary country-by-country. For example, in the United States, a patent covers research, except “purely philosophical” inquiry. A U.S. patent is infringed by any “making” of the invention, even a making that goes toward development of a new invention which may itself become subject of a patent.
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A patent being an exclusionary right does not, however, necessarily give the owner of the patent the right to exploit the patent. For example, many inventions are improvements of prior inventions that may still be covered by someone else’s patent.
If an inventor takes an existing, patented mouse trap design, adds a new feature to make an improved mouse trap, and obtains a patent on the improvement, he or she can only legally build his or her improved mouse trap with permission from the patent holder of the original mouse trap, assuming the original patent is still in force.
On the other hand, the owner of the improved mouse trap can exclude the original patent owner from using the improvement.
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Some countries have “working provisions” that require the invention be exploited in the jurisdiction it covers.
Consequences of not working an invention vary from one country to another, ranging from revocation of the patent rights to the awarding of a compulsory license awarded by the courts to a party wishing to exploit a patented invention.
The patentee has the opportunity to challenge the revocation of license, but is usually required to provide evidence that the reasonable requirements of the public have been met by the working of invention.